Sunday, 28 February 2016

Cameron: Interview with a traitor

"After
the Leave campaign successfully lead the nation out of the control of
the EU and back in to the wider world of global collaboration, we
secured an interview with the ex-Prime Minister, David Cameron. but in
order to get the truth, we sat him down and gave him a good shot of
Sodium Pentathol first."

During this referendum, you may have heard the sound of a demented parrot

When the Prime Minister stood up and said "I'm a Europsceptic" .. nobody really believed him. When he said he was "battling for Britain", people replied "charade". And when he came back from the Council of Ministers saying he had a "good deal for Britain", anyone who had wanted reform stood there and said out loud "Is that it?"

It's a ridiculous spectacle, so predictable in its execution - and it's also a huge let down for the British people. When the referendum was called, I briefly let myself believe that we could be in for a 'win win' situation where we either left or we got proper reform, propelled by the need to settle the situation combined with a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity. It quickly became evident that Cameron was only interested in window dressing, perhaps aware of the EUs complete intransigence and inability to consider proper reform.

The horror we face is that we'll end up in the EU twilight zone. The Eurozone will condense in to a single country, with us sitting on the fringes, neither part of the zone nor able to strike it out on the global stage under our own steam. And as the Eurozone struggles to remain buoyant, will it not make a power grab and look to seize the crown jewels of financial services, bringing them to Frankfurt?

Regardless, Cameron is campaigning for the EU (although he repeatedly conflates this with Europe for all the reasons we've said before) and has seen fit to position himself as the lead campaigner for Remain. He's spoken to the house and promoted his so called deal; he's launched 'Conservatives In' (styled remarkably on the Stronger In campaign) and surrounded himself in a bubble of careerist kiss-arse MPs who would probably put their own chopper in a dead pig's mouth if it meant pleasing him; he's given passionate speeches at the 'Stronger In' HQ and other safe abodes where his paper thin logic is unlikely be challenged.

Alarmingly, many of his allies want us to remain in the EU for reasons that run directly against the interests of the PM and the Conservative party. Twice this week I've heard people (Nicola Sturgeon and also some Labour MPs) suggest that they need the EU in order to circumvent the actions of the Tory governments. To paraphrase: They are not prepared to settle for the will of the people being exercised through parliamentary democracy and hence, want to perpetuate the undemocratic EU in order to undermine the process.

The one thing that is clear here is that on all fronts of the Remain campaign, democracy is the enemy.

Through the luxury combination of both hope and imagination, let's roll forward to a brighter, more global, less dystopian future. One in which the Leave campaign won the referendum and discovered that the apocalyptic catastrophe promised by the Remain campaign failed to materialise - just as the doom laden assertions about not joining the Euro also failed to come true.

In this future, we struggle to come to terms with the damage done to democracy over the preceding forty years, bringing prominent players together in an act of truth and reconciliation. However, the former Prime Minister has become so enmeshed in his fabric of deceit that he's unable to deliver the necessary 'truth' element. Lucky for the population then that he 'accidentally' sat, sharp end first, on a full syringe of Sodium Pentathol that someone happened to have left on his seat at the committee. After a decade of toady sycophants tempering his backside with their puckered lips, he doesn't feel the little prick that he should - and none the wiser, the truth finally flows out.

----

David Cameron sits at the desk, head swimming as the truth serum courses through his veins, slowly unbuttoning the defences that separate truth from deceit.

Members of the Truth and Reconciliation committee sit in silence, waiting for the former Prime Minister to settle himself. He's muttering something and the Chair motions to the man in the corner running the audio desk to turn up the microphone.

Suddenly, realising that his mouth is running away with itself, he tries to regain composure, but all that manages to spill from his lips are the words "leap in the dark .... leap in the dark" like some tortured parrot.

The committee members look at one another, both concerned and amused.

"Sorry ... sorry" he says as he finally snaps out of it.

The Chair begins. "What we're trying to understand here today is
just how successive Prime Ministers, having been given the responsibility of care for national sovereignty, continually managed to hand it over to what is now widely recognised as an altogether undemocratic body. At the time, it all happened so slowly but now we've stepped back, so to speak and retaken the political reigns for the UK, it's strikingly obvious."

Cameron, now fully under the influence, pipes up "Well yes. The EU positions the idea that Winston Churchill conceived of a United States of Europe in 1946, but the idea of the EU was conceived well in advance of World War 2. This has been a long standing project cooked up by a man called Jean Monnet. In many respects, he saw democracy as a danger."

The committee Chair looks over the top of her spectacles. "The free will of the people ... a danger?"

Charged with truth serum and unable to restrain his ramblings, Cameron continues with his fess up. "Yes, and that accounts for the fact that we, as Prime Ministers, looked to implement the plan without consent or consultation."

"I'd put it to you that you actually went further than that Mr Cameron. Would you accept a charge of deceit?"

Cameron searches his soul for a moment, a look of resignation spreading across his face. "Monnet realised in the 50's that it wouldn't work like a light switch, so he conceived the idea that the changes would be made gradually over time. Effectively, when we joined the project in the 70's we recognised there and then that sovereignty would be whittled away in order to create a federal supranational entity, so the deceit in many ways was that the people of Britain were left believing that the Prime Minister was in charge of the nation. We had, in fact, given it up long ago - so our role was just to facilitate the merger over time, ensuring that the move was carefully managed so the people didn't rebel. We were just caretaker managers."

The sound of chattering amongst the committee breaks out as they confer over the latest revelation. The Chair leans in to her mic, "Does this mean that the document recovered from the Foreign and Commonwealth under the Freedom of Information act, document FCO 30/1048 from the 70's, is actually correct? In that it illustrates pernicious hoodwinking of the British electorate by the civil service in order to achieve outcomes which would never have been acceptable had they been explained up front? The known loss of sovereignty; monetary and military union; rule by bureaucracy; active disinformation campaigns?"

"I'm not entirely familiar with this document but it does sound like the strategy we've all taken, up until the referendum that is."

The Chair rustles her papers, perusing more text from her list of points to cover. "This has been quite revealing Mr Cameron. A few more questions if I may, about your own activities around the referendum. Can you explain to us the remarkable difference between your position at the Bloomberg speech and your massively pro EU stance throughout the referendum campaign?"

Completely lost in a sea of chemical honestly, Cameron has an eruption of hubris, spilling the beans around his cunning and guile as if it were a badge of honour. "Yes, it's the Conservative way. We position a Europhile as a sceptic in order to win over the grass roots, geeing them up with a jingoistic rant that we never intend to fulfil. Once in power, we then move to the second pillar of Tory leadership, the one where we take the role of statesman where we have to make 'tough decisions' which roughly translated means 'continue handing over power to the EU'. It's this strategy which allowed me to repeatedly say black was white. For instance, over the matter of sovereignty, I rather cunningly redefined it in a new way, not to mean the right of self governance but the need to hand over power in order to work with other people. I thought I had gotten away with it as well, but the British people managed to see through it."

"And on that point Mr Cameron, you insisted that handing over sovereignty was the only way to get things done; but you were wrong weren't you!" The Chair now working to press home a point which all other committee members seem keen to get the answer to.

David Cameron clutches his chin and slides down in to his chair, momentarily battered by a tide of painful thoughts. "I guess I have to admit. I thought that if I said there was only one way, as the Prime Minister, people would accept just that. But the argument was lost, not just because Boris Johnson pointed it out but because instinctually they knew that there was another way. Ultimately I was undone by the inter-governmental vision that allowed nations to fully cooperate yet retain sovereignty. I mean, I actually had to revert to inter-governmental agreements in order to get 'the deal'", Cameron puts the words in quotes with his fingers as he says them, "so in a way I undermined my case for supranationalism. No matter how many times I said it, people didn't buy the fact that by diluting the nation in a pool of 28 actually did anything other than diminish their voice on the world stage."

"And talking of the deal, do you now accept that it wouldn't have been legally binding?"

Cameron breaks out in to bellowing laughter. "Of course not. I was desperate though. In hindsight, I should have listened to Lynton Crosby and pushed the whole thing back until 2017. The EU, who I was answerable to at the time, had other ideas though so I had to press for the ridiculous 2016 date."

The committee confer amongst themselves for a moment and then break, allowing the Chair, with a delighted look upon her face, to ask one final question: "Now Mr Cameron, as you're prepared to be so honest in these discussions, we'd like to ask you ..... what about that pig?"